


Four is an Odd Number

by AlmondRose



Series: Sharing Scars [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, a lil angst maybe?, honestly i'm so Done with this fic it probably sucks omg, i'm gonna be writin sillier one shots in this series later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 12:39:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8845450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlmondRose/pseuds/AlmondRose
Summary: You share marks with your soulmate. If you draw on your hand, your soulmate gets the same drawing. If you get scarred, so does your soulmate. And if you die, your soulmate feels it, too. Stephanie Brown has three soulmates, which hasn't happened since like....ever.Cassie Sandsmark has one soulmate, she's pretty sure.Kara Zor-El is very relieved that now that she's on Earth, she has her soulmate(s).And Damian....well, he mostly ignores this whole "soulmate" thing.





	

**Author's Note:**

> CREDIT GOES TO JEAN FOR INSPIRING ME TO WRITE THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE THANKS JEAN ILY

Stephanie Brown burrows under the covers and pulls the flashlight from under her pillow. She waits, and she hears footsteps receding to their bedroom. Steph grins and flips on the flashlight, aiming it at her arms. There’s the purple splatters from her own paint, and there’s the crisscross of scars that aren’t hers. There’s a new one, a fresh one, and Steph touches it. She wonders why her soulmate has so many scars, why so many when he’s (or she’s) so little. Or at least Steph is only nine--maybe they’re a little older? That’s still too young for scars, Steph’s mind whispers. Unless it’s Robin, she thinks, then she pushes the thought away, because there hasn’t been a Robin in a long time. 

 

She goes to check her hand, and the faded diamonds and lines are still there. It’s like a weird tattoo, Steph thinks, one that’s been there her whole life. She doesn’t understand it, and her parents don’t either, and neither does the librarian. It’s just….diamonds and lines and a weird shape that reminds her of Superman’s “S”. And Steph doesn’t know what it is, why her soulmate has a tattoo on their hand and scars all over their body and there’s a doodle of a flower on the back of her hand. There’s new doodles a lot. 

 

Sometimes Steph doodles, and then her soulmate adds around them, and they make a whole drawing. Steph’s never talked to her soulmate, although she knew their birthday was April 26 and they knew hers was August 11, ever since Steph had drawn a little cake on her birthday then her soulmate returned the favor on theirs. 

 

Steph doesn’t understand her enigma of a soulmate, the soulmate with scars and a tattoo and flower drawings on her arm. She doesn’t understand, and she hopes she can meet them soon, so she can ask about it all. 

 

\------

  
  


Cassie Sandsmark has flowers on her arms and paint on her hands and a diamond-y pattern on her hand. Her soulmate must be in a weird situation, she thinks, because although they seem to be normal, there’s still the diamonds on her hand that the doctors and her mom says have been there since she was born. 

 

She has a theory about the diamonds. Her theory is that her soulmate is a superhero, and the diamonds are their link to their powers that her soulmate was gifted with on August 11, whenever they were born. 

 

(they must be a year or two older than her)

 

But Cassie likes the drawings, and she likes to add to them, to have a masterpiece that she and the one she was meant to be with contributed to. 

 

When she turns ten, she starts to draw two Ws on her arm. The symbol of Wonder Woman. 

 

Her soulmate returns it with a drawing of a bat. 

\------

 

When Kara Zor-el gets out of the sleep that the Phantom Zone put her in, and Kal (who’s not a baby anymore, he’s a grown man, and Kara is older and younger than him, and she’s really confused and also has superpowers) sets her up with the Danvers’s, Kara sits on her bed and notices the marks on her arm. There’s a note on her hand, one that tells her to remember to walk Krypto, that’s decades old, by now. Kara smudges it furiously, erasing it forever. 

 

There’s other marks, on her arms. There’s purple splatters on her fingertips, and little drawings of flowers, one in black pen and one in glittery pink. There’s an odd shape, a couple of dips next to each other and stacked on top of each other. These drawings are all over her hands, and Kara almost cries in relief, because on Krypton she had been the only one to not have a soulmate. 

 

It makes sense, she thinks, because when she was on Krypton that would have been before her soulmate was born. And her soulmate lives on Earth, hopefully, because that’s where Kara lives now. 

 

Her arm tingles and she looks down. In purple pen, there’s an arrow and a squiggle pointing to where Kara’s note had been. Kara assumes they are wondering where the mark they must have had their whole lives are. 

 

She finds a pen on her desk and grabs it. It’s blue ink. She draws the symbol for the house of El on her hand, right where the note had been, then she draws flowers all around it.

 

Almost immediately, purple and red flowers bloom around it. 

 

\-----

 

Damian al Ghul ignores the purple ink all over his arms and keeps training. 

 

\--------

 

Steph’s dad comes back from jail, and Steph keeps drawing Batman’s symbol on her arms. It feels like a cry for help, a cry for her soulmate who always had Wonder Woman’s symbol and Superman’s S on her arm. Steph stares at the three symbols, all next to each other. She stares and stares and stares and stares and. 

  
And she takes her purple curtains off the hinges, takes her spare bedsheets, and she pulls out a sewing machine. 

 

(she’s not sure how to sew, but she’ll figure it out)

  
  


\----------

 

Cassie draws the Wonder Woman symbol on her arm to remind herself. And she draws it so her soulmate has a hint to help find her. 

 

Because she’s Wonder Girl now, and she’s saving the world, and she’s seen Kryptonian (accidentally) and she’s pretty sure the mark that was on the back of her hand was that language, and now she’s not sure who her soulmate is. 

 

(she can’t help but remember when it had vanished and a purple question mark had appeared, looking like it was wonder where the mark was. Well,  _ Cassie  _ didn’t get rid of it. And if she didn’t, why was her soulmate wondering where it was?

 

_ Who are you?  _ She writes in Greek across her arm.  _ Ποιος είσαι? _

  
  


\-----------

 

“Wonder Girl,” Superman says. “This is Supergirl.”

 

“Hi,” the other blonde says. It’s funny, it doesn’t  _ look  _ like she’s been in a sleep for twenty-some years and had just woken up. She doesn’t  _ look  _ like an alien. 

 

_ Neither does Superman,  _ Cassie’s mind reminds her. 

 

“Hello,” she says cheerfully, extending her arm to shake. Supergirl looks at Cassie’s hand, then at Superman. Then she takes it, warily, and Cassie shakes it. 

 

“We were hoping you could hang out, show Supergirl what it’s like to be a teenager on earth,” Superman explains. 

 

“Sure,” Cassie says, and Superman and Wonder Woman leave them. They’re alone in the headquarters for Young Justice. Supergirl wrings her hands and looks around. 

 

“Nice….place,” she says. She has an accent for a language Cassie’s never heard. 

 

“Yeah,” she says. “Want to sit?” Supergirl nods, and Cassie leads her to the couches. “You can call me Cassie.”

 

“Kara,” Supergirl says. 

 

“Cool,” Cassie says. “So….how are you adjusting to Earth?”

 

“Okay,” she says. “The...people...Kal put me with are nice.” She speaks slowly, falteringly, like she’s worried she’ll mess up. 

 

“How about the powers?” Cassie asks. Kara grins, a crooked grin that promises mischief and inevitable trouble and Cassie loves it. 

 

“I like the powers,” Kara says. “You...can fly?”

 

“Yeah,” she says. “I can’t do anything flashy like you, but I’ve got some stuff.”

 

“Flash-y?” Kara asks, miming running. Cassie laughs. 

 

“No, not the Flash, like...cool. Big. Exciting.”

 

“Flying is always exciting,” Kara says, matter of factly, and Cassie laughs again. 

 

\---------

 

Kara sees the symbols she now knows as Batman’s and Wonder Woman’s all over her arms. She wonders why her soulmate keeps drawing over the Wonder Woman one, why her arm is covered with little Bats. 

 

Maybe it’s a hint? Maybe her soulmate lives in Gotham?

 

Kara isn’t sure, and she’s not sure she wants to know, at least not yet. Cassie Sandsmark, Wonder Girl, is always at the corner of her mind, these days. Her smile, her hair, her eyes…..Kara can’t stop thinking about her. She’d like to fool herself into thinking she’s got a little crush on Cassie for a little longer while they both look for their soulmates. 

 

(Kara dismisses the thought that her soulmate could be Cassie--why would Cassie draw bats all over her arm? Wouldn’t Kara be able to tell who her soulmate was, whenever she met them(her)?)

  
  


\-------

 

Damian notices when he gets his father’s symbol all over his left arm. He notices when the paint splatters stop forming on his hands. And he doesn’t--he doesn’t  _ worry  _ about the purple loving person on the other end, but he wonders. 

 

The flowers are still there, the flowers on the back of his hand and wrist. But the paint from before, and the smiley faces--they’re gone. 

 

Damian is only eight, but he doesn’t like the implications of his soulmate not being as happy as before. 

 

And maybe--maybe they’ve just grown out of painting, maybe smiley faces are just something they don’t want to draw, but maybe there’s something deeper to drawing Batman symbols on his arm. 

 

Or maybe there isn’t, he thinks. 

 

\------

  
  


“Soulmate?” Bruce asks. 

 

“Um, why?” Steph responds, hands on her hips and glad for her purple sleeves covering her arms. 

 

“I don’t care who they are, just if you’ve found them,” he explains. 

 

“Have  _ you?”  _ she asks. 

 

“Yes,” he says simply and she’s afraid to ask about anything else. 

 

“No,” she admits. “Not yet. But they’re alive.”  _ And scarred,  _ she adds mentally. 

 

“Okay,” Bruce says, and Steph doesn’t think that’s the end of it, but she doesn’t protest. 

 

\-----

 

Kon is in Titan’s Tower, texting Tim and listening to Cassie and Kara talk. He doesn’t actually listen to the words, just the sound. It’s relaxing. 

 

Tim:  _ I need pizza _

 

Kon:  _ u always need pizza _

 

Tim:  _ everyone always needs pizza i just need it right now _

 

Kon:  _ do u need me 2 bring u pizza? _

 

Tim:  _ YES _

 

Kon:  _ what flavor? _

 

It’s about then that he notices that the girls have stopped talking. He looks up to see them both looking at their arms. Their left arms. Both are smiling fondly, a smile Kon recognizes. The soulmate smile, the smile you get when your soulmate says something cute or draws a nice doodle or something. 

 

He uses his super-vision to zero in on Kara’s arm. There’s a purple flower with layers and layers of petals around it. As he watches, more petals draw themselves on. 

 

Kon turns to Cassie and his eyes widen. On the same spot on her arm, the same purple flower is drawing itself. Kon goes back to Kara. The Wonder Woman symbol is under her thumb, and there are three small Batsymbols and one Robin symbol. There’s a scratched note in Kryptonian---Remember to feed Streaky. 

 

Kon looks at Cassie’s arm again. There’s the same marks, in the same spot, and yet, the flower is still drawing itself. He looks back down at his phone. 

 

Tim:  _ pineapple _

Tim:  _ and ham _

Tim:  _ or meat lovers _

Tim:  _ you know what I don’t even care just get something really greasy and gross, okay? _

Tim:  _ kon?? _

 

Kon shakes his head and types something out.

 

Kon:  _ Is it possible 2 have 2 soulmates? _

 

Tim:  _ um _

Tim:  _ super rare but not impossible _

Tim:  _ wait why????????????????????????? _

 

Kon:  _ NO NO babe not me no don’t worry _

Kon:  _ cassie and kara have matching arms but someone else is drawin rn  _

 

Tim:  _ ooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh _

Tim: _ you gave me a heart attack you butt _

Tim:  _ in that case, yes, v possible _

Tim:  _ have you talked to them? _

 

Kon:  _ not yet _

 

Tim:  _ do that while I recover from your HEART ATTACK jesus christ  _

 

Kon:  _ i love u <3 _

 

Tim: _ GO TALK TO THEM _

 

Kon’s arm tingles and he looks down; in capital letters it says “GET ME PIZZA ON THE WAY BACK”

 

Kon takes a marker from his pocket (he’s gotten into the habit of carrying them) and draws a big heart. He can almost hear (and maybe he can, super hearing and all) Tim’s groan from here. 

 

He pockets the marker again. 

 

“Hey guys,” he says. Both girls look over at him. “What are you doing?”

 

“Soulmates,” they say at the same time, then they look at each other, surprised. 

 

“What’d your soulmate say?”

 

“Nothing, just drew a flower,” Kara says, shrugging. 

 

“Same,” Cassie says, looking suspicious, then Kara’s sped across the couch and is sitting next to the other girl. 

 

Kara’s mouth falls open and Kon stands up. 

 

“My work here is done,” he says, and he remembers that Kara has a crush on Cassie, and he grins. 

 

He flies away, writing “case closed” on his arm and drawing more hearts all around it. 

 

\--------

 

Cassie stares at Kara’s arm, aligned next to hers. They have the same marks. The same marks! They’re soulmates! 

 

“We’re…..”

 

“Yeah,” Kara says. “And there’s--”

 

“Another,” Cassie adds, staring at the purple flower on her arm. “Did you--?”

 

“The bats? No,” Kara says. 

 

“And the tattoo thing was--”

 

“From when I was in the Phantom Zone.” 

 

“Right,” Cassie says. 

 

“Yeah,” Kara agrees. 

 

Cassie turns to look at her. 

 

“We need to find the other person.”

 

“Sure,” Kara says, meeting Cassie’s eyes. 

 

“Yes,” Cassie says, and she isn’t sure what else to say. Her and Kara’s lips seem drawn together, like a magnet, it’s only inevitable that they’ll meet. 

 

And they do. 

  
  


\--------

  
  


“Do you think,” Kara asks later. They’re on Cassie’s bed in the Tower, Kara’s head on Cassie’s stomach. She’s holding Cassie’s arm up and tracing the bats there. “That the third person is in Gotham?”

 

“Yes,” Cassie says. “Do you think they’re in the community?”

 

“There’s a lot of Bats in Gotham,” Kara says. “I hope so.” She hopes it’s a girl, she’s never been attracted to boys before. Then again, first time for everything? 

 

She can’t believe she has not one, but two soulmates, and back on Krypton she was bullied for having  _ none.  _ She laughs, giddy. 

 

“You okay?”

 

“Better than okay,” Kara says. “I liked you before I knew. About us, I mean.”

 

“I think I did too,” Cassie says slowly. “You’re pretty great.” Kara’s face lights up in a blush and she stammers. She fishes around for a marker and finds a red gel pen. She recognizes it. 

 

“I know this pen,” she says. 

 

“Yeah,” Cassie says, and Kara can hear the grin in her voice. She uncaps the pen and writes on Cassie’s arm, feeling the familiar tingle on her own arm. 

 

_ There’s three of us.  _

 

She looks at it and holds her breath. Her arm tingles again and Cassie gasps. 

 

_ Really??  _ It’s the same purple pen the other one always uses. 

 

_ Yeah,  _ Kara writes.  _ We’re together.  _

 

_ What?? Omg!!  _  The purple pen writes. It looks like a girl’s handwriting, Kara notes. Cassie takes the pen from Kara’s hand and leans over Kara to write on her arm. 

 

_ We already knew each other, just found out abt the soulmate thing.  _

 

_ Awesome! Wonder if I know you….  _ Kara wonders too. She really does. 

  
  


\-----

 

Damian squints at the strange sentences on his arms. “Really??”, “What?? Omg!!” and “Awesome! Wonder if I know you….” are all very odd things to be writing. He doesn’t understand. He wants to ask the purple person on the other side. 

  
  


He doesn’t. 

 

\-----

 

Steph steals Batman’s plans and sits on a rooftop, pulling off her left glove. There’s pink hearts drawn all over her arm, over the scars and the bats she still obsessively draws. She traces the Robin symbol on the back of her hand and pulls her glove back on, resolving to find her soulmates as soon as she proves herself to Batman. 

 

He might even know who they are, Steph thinks, grinning from under her mask. She jumps from the roof, giddy with excitement. 

  
  


\------------

 

If your soulmate dies violently, you feel it. You can feel it as they die, as they gain new scars and succumb to pain. 

 

(Roy Harper once described it as unbearable pain, to feel it and not know who it was and to see the scars on his arms, before losing the scars and being left to wonder what happened to them.)

 

Cassie remembered this (well, not the Roy thing), all in a flash as the scars formed on her arms. Cassie couldn’t scar, Kara couldn’t scar, and their third lived in Gotham, and was possibly a superhero. 

 

And Cassie had new scars every few hours, and she was worried. 

 

Very worried. 

  
  


\------

 

Kara hadn’t been hurt since Krypton. She barely remembered pain, besides the woozy feeling of Kryptonite. But she sees the new scars on her hands, on her body, and she’s afraid for her soulmate. 

 

When she wakes up and the word “Sorry” is written on her arm in dark red, like blood, she balks. She traces the letters with a sick feeling in her throat and pulls out her phone. 

 

“Cassie?” she says as soon as she picks up. “We need to get to Gotham. Now.”

 

\-----

 

Damian feels blinding pain. He stops and shudders. He looks at his arms, where the new scars are blazing and the smeared “Sorry” is glowing faintly. He can deal with this, he can deal with this, he can deal with this---the pain stops, and he feels….empty. 

 

He still feels like himself, but it feels as though a part of him is missing, as though something he’d never noticed before is just gone.

 

“Damian?” Mother asks, because Damian has stopped walking in the middle of the hallway. “Is everything okay?”

 

Damian stares at his arm, the arm that is suddenly smooth besides his own scars. The smeared “sorry” written in blood is gone, the new scars he’d acquired are gone. And he feels empty. 

 

“I--” he starts, before the scars are back on his arms and he’s in pain,  _ again.  _ And he doesn’t understand, he doesn’t understand, he doesn’t understand.

  
  


\-------

 

“What are you doing here?” Tim asks at Stephanie Brown’s funeral. Cassie shrugs and Kara wipes her eyes. 

  
Cassie’s in constant pain, her arms going from scarred to not scarred and back again. She’s not sure what’s going on, why her body is in a constant state of….flux. Kara admitted that she felt the same way. 

 

Cassie’s afraid for Stephanie Brown, who is supposedly dead and she was reported by Batman to draw bats on her arms as a nervous habit, who loved purple, who was bright and sunny and cheerful and Cassie remembers meeting her, once. Tim had taken Spoiler to Titans Tower for a mission, and--Cassie had trouble thinking about it. 

 

She stared at Stephanie’s grave and pain wracked her body again; Kara’s hand slipped into hers and squeezed. 

 

Later, when the funeral is over and they fly to the Davners house and curl up under Kara’s blankets, Cassie pulls out her red gel pen and starts to draw. 

 

Kara joins in, and she takes the blue ballpoint she’s prone to using, and they draw flowers all up and down their arms. 

 

Cassie takes the red and draws an arc over the layer of flowers, and Kara writes “RIP” on the inside. It’s sort of a grave stone, a memorial. 

 

For a second, the pain comes back and there’s the scars and the ever-blurry blood red “sorry” is right next to the grave, and Cassie finally lets herself cry. 

  
  


\-----

 

Damian leaves in the middle of the night. He harbors no delusions about his mother not knowing where he is, and he hops on a train that’ll take him to China--he’ll get on a plane once he gets there. 

 

He stares at his arms and pretends that the maybe-dead person on the other side is only part of the reason he left. 

 

(technically, he  _ does  _ want to meet his father and claim his birthright.)

 

He remembers all the bats, the Robin symbol, the “sorry” written in blood, and he knows the other is in Gotham.

 

Damian huddles in the back of the train, in a car full of hay, and he looks at his bag, which has a marker stolen from Mother’s room in it. 

 

The pain covers his body and the scars reappear and Damian’s breath doesn’t change. He braces it through and when it’s over and he feels empty he pulls out the marker. 

 

He uncaps it and he writes on his arm for the first time. 

 

_ Are you alive? _

 

\------

 

When Steph wakes up her arms are empty. She panics and a minute later they’re not, but she’s sore everywhere, and Leslie Thompkins says that she was dead, but now she’s not, and also they’re in Africa. 

 

Steph is confused and her arms keep going blank save for her own scars then she gets the other scars back, sees her arms exactly the same as they were before she--before she died. 

 

Steph’s in Africa for six months before her arms sort themselves out and she feels that familiar tingle and the universe is right again. 

 

There’s a layer of flowers, on the underside of her arms, and a grave rising over it. Steph balks and she recognizes the two colors comprising the memorial….because they think she’s dead. 

 

Above that, in black marker (sharpie?) and careful printing, there is a question. 

 

_ Are you alive?  _ It asks and Steph knows it’s not from the others, it’s doesn’t  _ go  _ with the memorial the others made, so that means---

 

How the hell did she end up with  _ three _ soulmates?

 

\-------

 

Cassie rides a horse across the beach of Paradise Island, her heart thumping in her ears and mixing with the sound of hoofbeats under and behind her. Wind whips through her hair and the racing helps her brace through the pain that shoots through her once again. 

 

The pain stops, almost abruptly, and Cassie is afraid she’d feel that emptiness of death again. But no--when she looks down, she can see the scars Stephanie left for her, and she feels--complete again. 

 

\-----

 

Kara shrieks with joy and pulls her horse to a stop. 

 

“She’s alive!” she yells, and she feels like it’s true. Cassie turns over her shoulder and grins, her hair a wild tangle of blonde curls and her eyes wild and so, so happy. Kara feels a surge of love at the sight and she knows her words are true. 

 

“Cassie,” she says, and Cassie’s tearing up, and Diana stops, up ahead, and turns her horse around.

 

“What’s going on?” she asks. 

 

“Our soulmate is alive!” Kara says, giddy. She wants to say it over and over and over. Diana’s face lights up in a smile.

 

“That’s excellent!” she says. Kara nods and Cassie wipes away her tears. “Shall you write to her?” Cassie and Kara exchange a look. 

 

\------

 

Damian sits down at the breakfast table. Dick eats cereal and watches. His brother pulls out a black sharpie and traces carefully along his arm, his tongue sticking out slightly. Dick walks around and peeks over his shoulder. It’s a simple question, “Are you alive?” but Dick’s eyebrows go up. 

 

“Why would you--ask….that,” he asks, gesturing to Damian’s arm. Damian turns, slapping a hand over his question.

 

“Mind your own business,” he hisses. 

 

“Sorry,” Dick says. “Just--wouldn’t you know if your soulmate was alive or not?”

 

“Mind your own b-business,” Damian says again, his eyes narrow. Dick catches the stammer, which is unlike Damian. He studies his face. His eyes are steely, and he’s very still. He looks like he’s--bracing himself? Dick’s eyebrows furrow, then Damian turns back to his arm. 

 

“What?” he mutters. 

 

“What’s what?” Dick asks, and he peers over. Nothing has responded, but Damian seems agitated. “What happened?”

 

“It stopped,” Damian says, slight wonder in his voice.

 

“What did?”

 

“The--pain,” Damian says, and Dick’s mouth falls open. 

 

“Excuse me?” he asks, and Damian turns back to him, impatient. 

 

“When your soulmate dies you feel their pain, Grayson,” Damian says as if Dick was an idiot. Dick scoffs. 

 

“I know,” he says. Then Damian’s words register. “Wait--”

 

“Shh,” Damian says, focusing on his arm. Dick looks over and right above Damian’s question, words are forming. 

 

_ Hey. I’m alive.  _

 

Damian scrambles for his sharpie. 

 

_ What happened?  _ He writes. There is a long pause and Dick realizes he is holding his breath, breathless in anticipation. 

 

_ I have three soulmates, _ the person (girl?) on the other end writes. Dick was  _ not  _ expecting that.  _ All three of you are asking me questions. Hold on.  _

 

\--------

 

Steph looks down at her arm. 

 

_ What happened?  _ From the person with the black marker. 

 

_ OH MY GOD  _ from the blue ballpoint. 

 

_ We know who you are, Steph,  _ from the red gel pen. She tries to work out how to answer. She wishes she had the purple pen that she’d left in her Spoiler utility belt. She has to settle with the black one Leslie had gotten for her. 

 

She takes a deep breath. 

 

_ I’m not sure what happened, I’m sorry. I was dead and now I’m not.  _

  
  


_ We could feel it,  _ the blue pen answers.  _ It...fluctuated. I don’t know how to explain it.  _

 

_ We’ll tell you when we see you,  _ the red pen says.  _ Are you in Gotham?  _

  
  


_ I’m not in Gotham,  _ Steph writes.  _ I’m coming back soon.  _

 

_ You’d better,  _ the black marker responds, almost instantly. 

 

_ We’ll be there,  _ the red pen says. 

 

_ Yes,  _ the blue responds. 

 

_ I’ll let you know when I get there. Are YOU in Gotham? _

 

_ No,  _ the red and the blue respond. 

 

_ Yes,  _ the black says. 

 

Steph bites her lip and wipes off the ink on her end so she has more room. 

 

_ How did you know who I am?  _ She asks. The blue and red ink disappears and the black gets smudged. Sharpies, Steph reflects, may not have been the best idea, although she’s in no position to judge them. 

 

_ We were @ your funeral,  _ the red pen writes, slowly. Steph sucks in a sharp breath.  _ T and B told us about you.  _

 

_ It wasn’t hard to figure out,  _ the blue pen adds.  _ B showed us pictures. _

 

_ He probably talked about the bat thing, didn’t he?  _ Steph asks, wincing. She wonders if she’ll fall into that habit again. 

 

_ I’m not sure who you are.  _ The owner of the sharpie has traded it out for a black pen. Easier to wash off, probably.  _ What bat thing?  _

 

_ Ask B,  _ Steph writes. If they don’t know who B is, then she’ll have to tell them.  _ He can show you pictures, too.  _

 

_ Really?  _ The black pen writes. Steph gives a positive answer as the blue pen writes  _ Only a little :)  _

 

Bruce had been very curious about Steph’s nervous habit and he’d tried to get her to talk about it but she didn’t really have anything to say. 

 

_ I know who you are now,  _ the black pen announces.  _~~Gray~~ _ _ N told me. _

 

_ Hi Dick,  _ Steph writes. 

 

_ Your other soulmate….?  _ The red pen asks. 

 

_ They know N,  _ Steph responds. 

 

_ Ahh,  _ the red pen says, and unfamiliar handwriting--but familiar-ish, like she’s seen it before, but maybe doesn’t know the person who wrote it---writes,  _ HI STEPH I’M TELLING TIM AND BRUCE AND----- _ there is a squiggle of black ink and Steph supposes the person whose arm Dick was writing on fought him off. Steph grins and she wonders who it is. 

 

\-------

 

Cassie and Kara stay up late late late talking to Steph. They’re on the beach, the sand in Cassie’s hair and her toes are dipped in the warm water. Diana took their horses back a while ago. 

 

Steph manages to juggle their conversation and the other, unknown person. Cassie’s impressed. She also feels bad because she doesn’t think Steph knows who she and Kara are. 

 

But...this is the second time Cassie has talked to Steph. And Steph is funny, and kind, and Cassie kind of loves her already. 

 

\------

 

Kara can hardly sleep. Cassie’s asleep on her shoulder, them finally having moved to a bed, and Kara can see in the dark. She inspects her arm, the words on her hands. Steph’s looping handwriting, somehow conveying laughter. The bickering that Kara can only see one side of, the words that remind her that she’ll meet Steph soon. 

 

_ Can’t wait to meet you all,  _ Steph had written at the end, and then she’d doodled a little bat, so familiar on Kara’s arm. 

 

And Bruce had said the bats were a nervous habit, a side effect of the depression she’d had when she’d first became Spoiler, but Kara had missed them. She brings her hand to her lips and kisses the bat, hoping and praying that Steph returns to Gotham sooner rather than later. 

  
  


\------

 

Steph stands on a rooftop, her hair and hood being pulled back from the wind, her cape heavy around her. She laughs, giddy, and inhales the Gotham air. 

 

She reaches into her belt and pulls out her purple glittery pen, the one she’d missed so much while she was dead. 

 

(Bruce had kept it on the table below the Batcomputer, in a mug that said “World’s Best Dad” that had one unsharpened pencil, three black pens with bats on them, and a hot pink marker Steph suspects used to be Jason’s.)

 

She takes off her bright purple glove with her teeth and clicks the pen, writing on her arm. 

 

_ Hello, Gotham,  _ she writes, and she blows on it to dry and puts the glove back on. 

 

A grapple whizzes past her; it’s Cass. Steph waves and whoops, Cass waves and flips to the next building. Steph does an excited dance in place and there’s a whoosh. 

 

She looks up and Supergirl and Wonder Girl are descending from the sky--Steph hadn’t known it was them, but. 

 

Looking at them, she knows. 

  
  


She runs to the pair and Supergirl is crying and Wonder Girl looks excited; Steph throws her arms around the pair of them and they hug her back. 

 

“It’s you,” Wonder Girl breathes. 

 

“Yeah,” Steph says, and her voice cracks but she doesn’t mind. “It’s me.” She tugs down her new mask so they can see her whole face. Supergirl laughs and Wonder Girl’s face breaks into a grin and Steph feels tears pooling at the corners of her eyes. 

 

“I’m Cassie,” Wonder Girl says. 

 

“Kara,” Supergirl adds. 

 

“Hi, Cassie, Kara, I’m Steph,” Steph says, and they already know her name, but now it’s  _ real.  _

 

“Tt. No real names on the field,” a voice scoffs from behind her. Steph turns, and there’s a boy, eleven or twelve, standing there, arms crossed, a green mask across his face and wearing a familiar costume. 

 

Steph knows who he is. She’s done a little research, before she arrived. 

 

Damian Wayne, son of Bruce Wayne and Robin. 

 

“Robin,” she says. “You came.”

 

“Of course I did, you idiot, I was feeling you  _ die  _ over and over,” he says, and he sounds defensive. Steph holds out her hand, and he takes it, hesitantly. 

 

“It’s nice to finally meet you, kid,” she says. 

 

“I suppose,” he huffs. She can see traces of a smile on his face, though, and she pulls him close, squishing him in a hug. She can feel Kara and Cassie at her back, still touching her, and they’re all here, and she finally starts to cry, her grin lighting up the night sky. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! hope you enjoyed :) comments/kudos are always welcome!
> 
> edit: sequel (http://archiveofourown.org/works/9538520) now posted! Let me know what you think!


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